The question clanked around my insides, resounding through my body. I felt a little light come on somewhere in the middle of my brain. I had never considered the possibility in regards to my lifestyle.

I’d been feeling this dull hum of malaise that I chalked up to a quake of a breakup that occupied my awareness and seemed to be there to stay. I knew that I was removed from the vitality and the vibrancy of who I am, of when I feel the most at home. There was nothing wrong with my life so to say, besides the breakup, and yet when I was honest with myself, I couldn’t escape feeling down, sluggish, resentful of my lack of enthusiasm.

When I was younger, my dad and I use to have conversations about “the darkness”, his name for a state that he would find himself. It was a passing depression, a dip in the roller coaster. We both experienced it, as did many of our extended family. He believed it was the flip side of intelligence, sometimes examining the world weighed a lot. I started to think that perhaps it was “the darkness” penetrating my sunny Los Angeles life as a teacher in the wellness world. I began to wonder when it would let up, as in my experience patience and acceptance are two of the antidotes to feeling low. The challenge is that one can no more predict when it will let up then they can when it will next rain in Los Angeles.

When I was asked about boredom, something clicked. I followed that feeling of accuracy a bit further and unwound a truth for myself: I had stuck myself into a little hole, and parts of my soul, parts that make me Erin, were not being fed. I am incredibly fortunate, and ever grateful, to live in Los Angeles. To be constantly surrounded by amazing women through my teaching and my work with Quilt. I have developed a routine that maximizes time and is saturated with self-development and self-analysis. I have a regular meditation practice. I wear a few outfits, mostly yoga clothes, and am working on simplifying even further.

And somewhere in all of that, I became, without realizing it, scared. I can see that as a way to avoid uncertainty, to not feel pain or loneliness, I stacked my days with all the things that are “good for me” that “I should be doing”. To get to xyz I have to do xyz. While it is true that there is power in a goal and the planning process, there is also magic in the realization that plans are useless. That it’s the unpredictability and the spontaneity where life truly happens. I am learning that “healthy” means setting myself up to be able to fully enjoy life, not spend all of my time checking boxes or pursuing perfect health.

Balance at one point in my life was adding more spiritual practices, subtracting foods that didn’t work well with my body, making it a priority to sleep. Those things resonate, but so does making time to put on a dress and go dancing. So does having a Guinness (and saluting my Irish heritage) on a random Saturday at 3pm because it felt joyous in the moment.

If we’re doing all of these things : the yoga, the meditation, the green juice, the adaptogens, the acupuncture, the cryotherapy, the sound baths etc., to live more fully, more awake, more vibrantly, then let us not forget the living part.